


I was raised out of steel

by Anuna



Series: Monsters [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Interrogation, Read the warnings, SHIELD is not made of perfect heroes, Ward doesn't want to be anyone's punching bag again, Ward is pretty much beaten up, also, and he's not nice, and it defines them both, and problematic behavior presented here will be addressed, but he's a BAMF, canon compliant physical violence, characters not being nice to each other, discussion of betrayal, he also retaliates, hostage situation which ends well, however their connection is still very much there, i mean them, if you hate grant ward this fic is NOT for you, it will take time but things will be sorted out, monsters 'verse, part of a series, problematic behavior on part of several characters, the beginning actually, things are not black and white, this is skyeward but at this point of the story they're adversaries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-08 07:46:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1932606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anuna/pseuds/Anuna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's the worst and he can handle the worst, but he will not be anyone's punching bag again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I was raised out of steel

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of headcanon fics, in which Ward basically goes enough, _ef you all, I am leaving_. And thus begins his walk down the redemption road. Mind you, it doesn't start out exactly nicely, and few things he did in here are definitely not cool. Neither are actions on part of others very cool. I wanted to address the threat of torture from the season finale (which frankly made my skin crawl), and I tried to discuss what happens when good guys cross some lines they shouldn't have. And of course, you don't have to agree with me and my take on this at all, but if you happen to read this fic and leave a comment, I ask you to be polite. I won't tolerate hate.

_Hold tight to your anger, and don't fall to your fears_  
\- Bruce Springsteen, "Wrecking ball"

*

 _Don't waste your blood_. It's a thing John said several times and it didn't make sense, and nothing makes any fucking sense any more, but right now he doesn't question himself. He doesn't have to. His head rings every time a new punch lands, and it gives him something to bite into. Something to look at and feel his sight fill with red. 

Because he will _never_ be anyone's fucking punching bag again. 

May doesn't spare him. Oh so vengeful and stupid, because if he bites his tongue then he won't be able to speak at all. 

“Hydra bases,” she hisses at him when she grabs his hair and lifts his head. His arms don't even feel like his own, wrists shackled to a wall, so he hangs – he can't stand up and can't kneel. Smart, but not enough. Not for him, because he's the worst, and he can handle the worst. The tug against his hair is intentionally rough and gives him more to focus on. Pain is funny that way – perfect to help you focus until you simply pass out and then, _then_ you're of no use to them anyway. Nothing May can do scares him. He bares his teeth at her and grins. 

“Is that best you can do?” he rasps. His voice is broken, but not silenced. “Or will you do this halfway too?”

She punches him again, knuckles against his right cheek, so hard that his head snaps to the side. The cut is bleeding again. He's bleeding in his mouth too. May wears a thin mask, he knows she's frustrated and he knows she's tired (more tired than him) and he knows she will never get one word out of him. 

“Talk,” she commands. Oh, like she can order him around. Like she _can._

 _Don't waste your blood_ , he thinks and spits in her face. 

“Fuck you,” he says. She elbows his gut, before he gets to properly clench his muscles. It hurts, but fuck that, he can take it, he can take anything. Nobody ever broke him and nobody will, and she can only try. She will never win. 

“I just might, but not in a way you'll like,” she says. He sneers into her face. 

“You think that's the worst I had?” 

She replies with a punch into his knee. His eyesight goes blank. 

“Still had worse,” he says. “John was better than you.” 

She pauses. Something flashes in her eyes. He doesn't fucking care. Why should he? _Who ever cared for him_? What does he owe them? May grabs his face, her fingers like a vise. 

“Great person to look up to,” she says through gritted teeth. 

Something in him snaps. 

“And you're much better? Coulson's faithful dog, how are you any better than me?”

“I didn't betray my team,” she snarls and punches his face again. 

“Oh you didn't?” he jerks at his chains, gaining momentum forward. “You didn't betray your precious Phil's trust working behind his back, watching if someone should put a gun against his skull? Me for example?? Wasn't that your order??”

“Shut the fuck up,” she says and hits his armpit and it fucking hurts. He screams and doesn't care, _he doesn't care_ because there's nothing to care about any more. 

“Wasn't your holy SHIELD behind it all? Didn't it poke around Coulson's brain? Or didn't they use you after Bahrain and then left you to rot in that basement, not giving a shit if they destroyed you or not? Wasn't it like that?”

With a yell, her knee connects with his stomach and she slaps him again. 

He watches her storming off, grinning around the blood in his mouth. 

*

Part of her mind asks, _why just the audio recording_. Why not video? Other part of her mind says that Coulson and May know what they're doing. 

There's a sound that can't be anything but a punch and Skye winces. (May knows what she's doing). She steels herself and keeps listening in. 

May says _Talk_ , and the Ward, in a voice she can barely recognize, says _Fuck you_. There's a groan. She suppresses a shiver, _he deserved it_. 

She hates him. 

_I might, just not in the way you'll like_ followed by _You think that's the worst I had?_ and a punch, and then _Still had worse. John was better than you_. 

Skye feels her stomach flip and she feels rage and she hears a punch and she feels nauseous, and the things said next don't even feel real. She feels her hands shake, and she hears things like _your precious Phil_ and _betray_ and _didn't they use you and let you rot_. Skye slams down the laptop screen, feeling like her insiders are on fire and made of lead, and before she can think she crosses two hallways and opens a door without knocking. 

Coulson looks up and May turns around. The conversation she interrupted is hanging in the air.

Skye's heart races. Coulson looks grim but his suit is neat and May looks like she always does, and these are the people she trusts. They know what they're doing. They know. 

“Skye?” Coulson asks. 

“I was just -” she grins, waves her hand and shakes her head. There's a reason why she's not invited to this meeting. She shouldn't be listening in. There's a reason. She should trust them, just like Coulson said once. He might need to confide her with a secret and trust that she can keep it. She should trust them. Audio recording is sufficient after all. Skye glances at the digital recorder and Coulson's laptop she just hacked. 

She ducks out and almost runs away. 

*

They say that curiosity killed a cat. 

Skye's not a cat. And she can take it. And if May can't make him talk, she can. She knows how to find a weakness in a system, and she knows his system, she knows how he works. 

He's pathetic. 

A weakling. 

And she hates him. 

Her card slides through the electric lock. The door gives way and she slips inside, into a dark hallway. 

At the end a smaller door and an ordinary lock. She knows how to pick them (And Ward taught her how to pick them faster.)

Which she does. She will get it from him. Her heart is racing. She hadn't seen him in twenty seven days. She wasn't counting. Fitz is still in a medically induced coma. Jemma is desperate. He betrayed them, _betrayed_ them. 

The lock clicks. 

Inside it's completely dark. She shivers. There isn't a sound, and she wonders if he's even in there, but she knows he knows how be be quiet. 

She is still. And quiet. (Just as he taught her. She will use it all against him, all that he taught her, she will take it away from him, he will _not_ define her. Traitor. Evil.)

There's a sound. A movement, maybe. And then, when she listens closely, carefully, she can hear it. 

Breathing. 

(Why does she feel relief?)

Where is the light switch? 

She has her flashlight ( _never go without one and be careful when to sue it_ says Ward's voice inside her mind.) 

She turns it on, directs it to the wall, but all she sees is concrete. 

He moves. 

This will have to make do. She takes a breath and follows the sound. He should be at the opposite end of the door, a little to the right, he should be....

 

The light falls on something against the opposite wall. No, hanging _off_ the wall. 

Suddenly she's frozen and she can't move. 

However he does – lifts his head and looks at her with eyes she can't recognize. 

_Face_ she can't recognize. 

It's like her brain freezes. Like she sees everything in pieces. Shackles. Blood. His arms. His legs. (The face she caressed). _He's hanging off the wall._

“What are you doing here?” he asks, and doesn't sound like himself, and _what happened to his voice?_

She doesn't move. She can't move. She needs the answers. Focus, Skye. 

_You're a serial killer_. 

“Hydra bases,” she says and not even her voice sounds like her. His face turns grim and dark and his eyes burn. He turns away from her as much as he can. She wants to leave.

No. 

No. She can't. 

Step forward. Focus on the mission. Eyes on the target. (She hates him). Her head repeats his words. Focus, Skye. 

She aims the light into his face and he closes his eyes. 

(Should she pry them open?)

“Hydra bases, Ward,” her voice hitches and her throat clenches. 

He looks at her. 

“No,” he says. Quietly. 

She has to do this. For Coulson. For May. Her stomach flips when she thinks of May. 

“Hydra... bases,” she says, staring at him and her eyes are stinging. “You owe it to us.”

His gaze feels like it's piercing her. Like the most horrible thing she's ever seen. But he's evil and a monster and deserves everything he gets, doesn't he? _Doesn't he??_

“I don't know,” he says. 

“That's bullshit.”

“Feel free to think whatever you want,” he says. His eyes suddenly look closed off, like he put up a wall. She has never seen him looking like that. “I don't _know_.”

“You're lying,” she hisses, suddenly feeling anger, feeling rage, because he has to know, _he has to._ But then he chuckles, bitterly, shakes her head and gives her this look, like she's fucking naïve. 

“No, Skye. I'm not that important as you think,” he says. 

*

When Trip finds her shaking, he doesn't buy she's all right. Because she's not. And it takes less than he expects to get her talking, disconnected, panicked – which is why he calls Simmons. They sit her on the infirmary table and she's rattling about blood and bruises and Ward hanging off the wall. And when Trip tries to inject her with a sedative she grabs his arm, and looks at him with wild, steely eyes. 

“Go there and patch him up,” she says. And Trip doesn't move but Skye's thrusting a key card into his palm, nearing hysterics. “Go there and patch him up. _Go there and patch him up_ -”

“I will,” Trip says. “I will.”

Jemma unfreezes. 

“I'm going with you,” she says. 

“No,” Trip answers, but Jemma is all steel, determination, focus. She glances towards the rear door, the door behind which Fitz is still sleeping. 

“You'll need help,” she says, detached, and she's taking a med kit and an Icer and handing the gun to him. 

And then they go. Trip goes first, unlocks the first door and finds the second one half open and Skye's flashlight on the ground. 

Finds Ward shackled against a wall and his gut tells him that this is fucked up and _wrong_ and that there are lines they shouldn't cross, no matter fucking what. Behind him Jemma gasps. 

“Lights, lights, fucking lights,” he says, searching the wall with the flashlight until he finds a switch. The lights spills from the ceiling, unforgiving and too bright. There's blood on the floor, there's blood all over Ward's face, his clothes, on the wall behind him. He feels sick and petrified, thinks of May and puts the two together, the handwriting and the person behind it. 

“We need to untie him,” it's like Jemma comes alive, her face grim, single minded. She snaps on the gloves and nears Ward without flinching. He's not unconscious but he doesn't look at her, and it's hard to tell what state he is in at all. “Ward?” Jemma calls. He opens his eyes, looks at her and closes them again. “Look at me,” she commands and has to shake him. His head falls. “Trip, we need to untie him.” 

Trip nods. Garrett taught him how to pick locks. Garrett taught him how to open shackles. Garrett taught him how to be an agent and how to be alert and how to react, it was Garrett who fucking taught him everything and Trip never noticed anything wrong, never doubted him, never questioned, just listened; and before him Garrett had Ward. 

The first cuff loosens. Ward quietly groans. 

Before him Garrett had Ward, and Garrett did something to Ward, and for some reason Garrett picked Ward. Not him. 

The second cuff opens. Ward falls forward, boneless and Trip has to catch him. 

Trip sets him down. Simmons kneels on Ward's other side and they set out to work. Simmons is cleaning cuts on his face, wiping away dried blood; Trip is checking his wrists (chaffed, red, one bleeding); lifts his shirt to check for internal injury and broken ribs. Stops when he sees bruises upon bruises. 

This is not what he signed up to do to people. 

Simmons pauses at the same time he does. They share a mute look. 

Ward is limp like a puppet. Trip shudders at the thought for some reason, hears Simmons mutter _oh God_ when she opens his mouth. There are cuts all over him that need cleaning and stitching, and it's a _wonder_ he doesn't seem to have internal injuries – but then you can't interrogate someone who's dead. 

He tells himself to focus. Finds a shot of antibiotic. Finds a vein on Ward's left arm. 

The moment he injects it a hand shoots out like a viper, grabs his throat, and before he knows what's happening, he's punched and then everything goes black. 

*

She's good at following instructions. She's good at doing what's expected of her. So when Ward tells her not to scream, Jemma doesn't scream. 

Ward grabs her, obviously taking her as a hostage. Trip is unconscious after a shot of dendrotoxin.

She's nearly petrified but when he tells her to move, she moves. He still half drags her. She wonders how is it possible, with all the injuries and the way they've found him; how is it possible that he's even moving around. Some part of her thinks he should be in a hospital bed, not trying to run away anywhere. 

“Not like I have much choice,” he says and she realizes she's said that aloud. 

His ribs are cracked, and he compensates by the way he's half pushing in front of herself. He's favoring his left leg as well and Jemma wonders why. Trip didn't get to check his legs at all, but she guesses it's something that has to do with his foot. The shot should prevent onset of infection, but only temporarily. He needs proper therapy. She can also feel his shallow breathing and erratic thumping of his heart and when they pause before a cross section of hallways she catches a sight of his neck. He's sweating. He is either in pain or running a fever or both, which means he's under a risk of getting worse before he reaches wherever he's heading. 

Which means she is in even bigger danger. 

“Where are you taking me?” she asks while he's dragging her through an empty hallway. Quietly, because he told her to stay quiet. He doesn't answer.

There's a shot. A bullet misses them by an inch. His reflexes are still intact. For a split second that makes her feel ironically safe, because the bullet in question could have easily hit her. 

He covers her mouth with his hand, but she doesn't intend to scream. It can only make the situation worse, and she doesn't want anyone to end up shot or dead. He leans against the wall and kicks an empty wooden box across the floor and towards the shooter – and when he does she feels a suppressed reaction to pain.

Across the hall someone moves and Ward fires the Icer. Agent May falls onto the floor. Ward holds her tighter against his chest, leaning against the wall. 

“Get out of there,” he says, staring ahead. “Get out of there and nobody gets hurt.” 

“I don't think you're in a position to make demands, Ward.”

It's Coulson's voice. Jemma can feel her own breaths getting shallow. The pain in her chest from lack of oxygen due to fast and shallow breathing. It's a natural response to the situation; increased heart rate, tensing of the muscles, everything dictated by the rapidly increasing levels of adrenaline in her bloodstream. 

“I have a hostage,” Ward says. She can tell he's straining his voice. It sounds raspy and broken, deeper than normal. He wouldn't sound like that from simple lack of talking, no. Something had to happen to his throat. “I don't think _you're_ in a position to make demands.”

Silence. 

“Show yourself, Coulson,” Ward says. After a pause, Jemma sees Coulson, holding an actual gun, without his grey jacket and without his kevlar vest. 

Ward shoots him too. 

Then he moves them forward. 

They reach the hangar two minutes later. Ward picks a small aircraft, ties her hands and feet with a rope and pushes her into the copilot seat. He ducks under the craft and she can feel him punching against it, hears something breaking. Receiver, she remembers. (She remembers Fitz installing them. _Fitz_. Jemma presses her lips together. Trip is unconscious, she is here, Skye is in the infirmary, possibly sleeping after Trip administered a sedative. Nobody is with Fitz.)

“Ward, please,” she says. He's moving towards the wall and elbows the weapons locker. The lock comes apart. “Ward,” she says and he turns. “Where are you taking me? Ward!” 

He's picking small and light weapons, breaking into another aircraft and taking a bag out of it. Jemma recognizes it as a standard SHIELD pack with spare clothes and rudimentary supplies. He tosses it into the aircraft behind her. 

“Med kit,” she says. He pauses. “You're hurt, you need a med kit.”

He looks at her. Nods. He returns with two packs of medical supplies a moment later. Then he's heaving himself up into the pilot seat, grunting. 

“You have cracked ribs,” she says. “And your foot is hurt. And I need to know if you're bleeding -”

“No time,” he's flicking the switches, putting on the headphones, reaching over and adjusting another set over her ears. 

Quickly and carefully. 

The engines start and then they're lifting up. 

*

“What are you doing?” Jemma asks. Ward flips her over his shoulder to get her off the plane. He grunts. He put her on his left shoulder. He should let her check his ribs. “Ward, what are you doing?” 

He puts her down on the ground, her back against a tree. The bag, medical supplies and weapons are all on the ground next to the aircraft. He kneels in front of her, pulls out a knife from behind his back and sticks it into the tree trunk. Then he pulls out a gun from inside his jacket – a real gun – loads it and tosses it aside. 

He's leaving her. He's leaving her with a knife and a gun. 

“Listen carefully,” he says, his voice strained and tense and his eyes serious. “The knife is stuck inside the wood firm enough for you to cut these apart,” he pats the ropes on her wrists. “You'll pull it out then and cut the ties on your legs. There's a gun,” he pauses. “If someone threatens you, you aim and then shoot. Don't hesitate.” 

She finds herself nodding. 

“You're hurt,” she says. 

“I've had worse,” he answers. He almost sounds like Ward she knows. Knew. _Thought_ she knew. He's reaching into his pocket again and handing her a cell phone. She recognizes it, it's Trip's. She didn't even see him taking it. “When you untie yourself, turn it on. They'll be able to find you,” he pauses. “Down that hill is a road. A ten minutes walk towards the east will take you to a small town,” he says. “East is that way,” he says and points. 

She swallows. 

“Why are you doing this?” she asks. “Why are you leaving me?”

He pauses. The reopened cut on his right cheek will certainly leave a scar. “Call the team. They should be able to locate you and pick you up within three hours from now.”

She swallows. Wherever he's headed, he didn't intend to take her with him, or hurt her. Jemma pauses at this. 

“You have four more shots like the one Trip gave you. Inside those med kits,” she's saying. “It's antibiotic. I don't know the extent of your injuries, but I think whatever happened to your left leg should get proper medical treatment. However, considering the circumstances -”

“I will take the shots,” he says. 

“One per twelve hours,” Jemma instructs. She remembers him grabbing her from thin air, remembers patching him up, remembers teasing him and remembers him sending the med pod out of the plane. 

And she remembers Fitz insisting he's not evil and wonders what he'd say right now. 

(She thinks she knows. She's just not ready to think about that). 

“Ward,” she says again. There's a question trying to tug itself free from her chest, but she's unable to put it into words. He acts almost like an animal, wounded, scared and on a constant watch. 

(If you hit an animal, it will most probably bite you back.) 

She can tell he's about to leave, and she almost doesn't want him to leave. 

“Simmons,” he suddenly says. “You need to watch out for Raina.” 

That makes Jemma pause. 

“Why?” she breathes, and of course, Raina isn't harmless, but Jemma doesn't understand why is he warning her specifically about Raina. 

“Because there's something about Skye's DNA,” he pauses, “something about Skye's parents being dangerous. And Raina wants to learn more about it.” 

Before Jemma can ask more, he disappears into the woods. 

*

The well is dry. 

The house is whole and he isn't. 

It has no right to be whole. He burned it for a reason, he burned it because it was a lie on the outside and hell on the inside. Imagery could be matched, he hated the hypocrisy then, and he realizes he still does. The sixteen year old Grant in him would burn it again. Thirty – two year old Grant is too tired. 

Leave it to his parents to fix the outer image. 

He isn't whole. He feels like there's a gaping would smack in the middle of his chest, and who is going to fix that? Not his parents, he thinks as he leans forward to look inside the well. It's nearly dark, and the lack of light down there is fitting. 

Perfect. 

Not John. He's not going to fix Grant Ward either. 

_You followed a psychopath_. 

Certainly not Coulson or his fucking SHIELD, because SHIELD is a lie, just like everything else was a lie. SHIELD protected you only until it was convenient. SHIELD used you until you were a functional gun. Then it stuck you in a basement or left you behind, whichever was more convenient. 

His parents used him when they needed an image of a perfect offspring. SHIELD used him. Best grades since Romanoff, six languages, one man solution. 

Turns out John used him as well. 

Ward tugs at the rope he's holding in his hand. He tied it firm and well, after checking if anyone was around. There wasn't. He looks down the well again. He knows it's not deep – not for him, six foot tall, grown up and nearly healed. But for a boy of six, it was almost deadly. 

It's ironic how he never ended up inside, because he feels it's him who deserved it. He climbs down, mindful not to slip. His feet reach the bottom. The pain in his left foot is now reduced to dullness he easily ignores. That's the thing about wounds and scars and not being whole – once they heal, you can forget they're there. You forget you're not whole, and for awhile you can even pretend everything is fine. He sits on the ground, inside the deep end of the well. The wall at his back is rough and the darkness around him almost complete. Maybe his brother never threw him in, but it was him who's been in here all this time. He lets his head fall against the wall, takes a breath and closes his eyes. If his head would only shut up, because he just wants to be done with it all. He just wants to forget, all of it, SHIELD and Coulson and Academy, and John. The team, May, Fitzsimmons and Skye. 

Last two thoughts make him open his eyes against the pain in his chest. 

The thing with scars? They're scars because they don't go away. Cut yourself once and it's with you forever. And when the weather turns they hurt, like they've been freshly cut and reopened, they hurt like ghost limbs, reminders of what you've had and lost. And then he hears Skye laugh, sees her grinning, sees her shiny hair and remembers kissing her for the first time. And then he thinks of John, of his lessons, of _never get yourself attached_. 

_Never get yourself attached, right, except to me, follow me, obey me, get me what I need and I'll throw you away in exchange_. 

Grant closes his eyes. They burn and his throat burns and all of his insides, they feel like they're burning too. And he thinks fuck you all, fuck you Coulson, fuck your idealism and your useless principles, and fuck you SHIELD and _fuck you John_ , for you were not any different than them. 

He wipes his eyes and uselessly kicks the wall of the well with his foot, only to get a bite of pain in return. He wants to growl, but his throat hurts too. He deserves it, doesn't he, for failing everyone, for being such a gooddamned idiot and wasting his life, for trusting John. For ruining everything. He deserves it. So he kicks the wall again and takes it. 

He hadn't cried in years. He hadn't cried in forever and he thought he never would again. That he forgot how to do it. But now it comes back to him in waves and with it comes anger, comes rage in waves, and he feels so broken and he feels like he could tear this goddamn well apart. 

And he cries. He cries until he can't any more. 

And then he climbs out, and above him are stars. 

 

*

The team finds Jemma three hours after she cut the ropes. 

Just as Ward promised they would. 

And when they do Coulson asks her if she's okay, and if she's hurt and what Ward did to her. Jemma shakes her head and says _nothing_. Coulson and May share a look, like they don't understand. Like they expected him to cut her in pieces. 

_Animals attack when provoked_ she thinks and focuses on Trip. 

“Are you okay?” she asks and he nods. He even smiles. 

“Had much worse,” he says. Jemma shudders at his choice of words. 

“How is Fitz?” she asks. Not that she expects to hear anything has changed, but she wasn't there to check on him for the past couple of hours, she wasn't there to look at the charts, his blood pressure and oxygenation and the color of his cheeks. 

Trip looks at Coulson and May. Oh Lord. Something happened, she thinks. 

When they come back to the base, she runs into Fitz's room – to meet his open eyes and slightly confused smile. 

“Simmons,” he says, “where the bloody hell are we?” 

“We're someplace safe,” she says, barely choking back the tears as he gives her a confused look. 

“Safe? What do you mean, safe? Were we somewhere not – safe before?” 

 

*

Just before Grant leaves, the door to the house opens. 

It's nearly dark and nobody should be there and he looks around, weighing his options and readying himself to run when he recognizes the figure moving along the porch. 

She's older now, she's grown up – but she still holds her hand slightly out, and she still wears her hair long. 

Kate. His chest hurts. 

She stands at the edge of the porch, her unseeing eyes turned in his direction. His little sister can't see him, will never see him. He should have been home instead of that goddamn school, had he been home then Maynard wouldn't push her into that wall and she wouldn't hit her head, she wouldn't lose her sight. But he wasn't home, because he screwed up, because his parents had to set him right, he was at the military school instead where he should have been. 

“Hello?” 

The voice is the same. It's exactly the same. It freezes him to the spot. 

“Who is there?” she asks, and part of him aches and wants to walk out of the shadow, he wants to walk up there and hug her. But he failed her and he doesn't deserve it. He failed her. 

He failed Skye, he failed Simmons, he failed Fitz, he failed Luke. 

Kate waits. And just when he thinks she'll go away, just when she's about to turn around and leave, she turns in his direction again. He can't see her face very well, but he wants to. 

He doesn't deserve that either. 

Then something happens. 

“Grant?” she calls. And what breaks him is the way her voice sounds. Hopeful. Like she never stopped waiting for him to come back home. (He promised he would. But instead he ended up locked up, and then ....) “Grant, is that you?”

He has to use all his power, everything in him not to move. Because he doesn't deserve it. 

But he wants to. He wants to. So, so much. 

_Don't waste your blood_ he thinks. And he thinks of the evil he let happen. He thinks of the doors he broke down and let bad men walk free. 

Yes, he thinks, don't waste your blood, Ward. If you had to spill it, make it count.


End file.
